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Showcase of Part of the Solution: A Mystery and a Giveaway of a $25 Barnes and Noble Gift Card

PART OF THE SOLUTION: A MYSTERY

by Elana Michelson

November 10 - December 5, 2025

Virtual Book Tour

Synopsis:

"Michelson's first-rate mystery novel...makes for addictive reading." –Foreword Clarion Reviews

It's 1978, and Jennifer Morgan, a sassy New Yorker, has escaped to the counterculture village of Flanders, Massachusetts. Her peaceful life is disrupted when one of her customers at the Café Galadriel is found dead. Everyone is a suspect—including the gentle artisan woodworker, the Yeats-wannabe poet, the town's anti-war hero, the peace-loving Episcopalian minister, and the local organic farmer who can hold a grudge.

Concern for her community prompts Jennifer to investigate the murder with the sometimes-reluctant help of Ford McDermott, a young police officer. Little does she know that the solution lies in the hidden past.

Part of the Solution blends snappy dialogue, unconventional settings, and a classic oldies soundtrack, capturing the essence of a traditional whodunnit in a counterculture era. ​

Praise for Part of the Solution:

"Sassy and soulful … Part of the Solution is a gem of a mystery novel with an effusive cast, feisty language, sharp cultural insights, and a moving love story that transcends tragedy and time."
~ Foreword Clarion Reviews, 5 Stars

"Michelson will keep readers guessing … [she] defies expectations and invites contemplation about the nature of justice, and what it means to leave something in the past."
~ Booklife Reviews, Editors Pick

"Michelson’s strengths lie … in her ability to re-create a specific cultural moment ... The Café Galadriel and its eccentric patrons feel luminous and alive … Michelson captures both the intimacy and the corrosive weight of long-held secrets."
~ Kirkus Reviews

"Delightful, compelling, and unexpected."
~ Midwest Book Review

Book Details:

Genre: Murder Mystery, Counter-Culture books
Published by: Torchflame Books
Publication Date: July 15, 2025
Number of Pages: 294 pages, Paperback
ISBN: 9781611536041 (ISBN10: 1611536049) Paperback
Book Links: Amazon | Kindle | Barnes & Noble | BookShop.org | Goodreads | BookBub | Torchflame Books

Read an excerpt:

Chapter One

Jennifer surveyed the café with satisfied proprietary eyes. The freshmen at the two corner tables were an excellent sign. Having arrived in Williamstown the day before, having unpacked their carefully faded blue jeans and dispatched their carefully dry-eyed parents, having found their way to the registrar’s office and the bookstore with barely concealed terror, they had, no doubt, asked whomever they could find where, you know, it was happening. And they had been sent straight to Café Galadriel to nurse their bludgeoned intellects and wounded sexuality on Jennifer’s coffee for the next four years.

Around them, the unmatched wooden chairs and tables of the café held the usual Monday afternoon crowd. Brownley (Philosophy) and Krasner (Sociology) sat over a game of chess. The Western Massachusetts Women’s Anti-Violence Task Force occupied the round table in the center of the room. Samir Molchev, self-styled seeker of truth, was alone at a corner table reading Suzuki’s The Field of Zen. On the salmon walls, a pre-Raphaelite poster of the Lady of Shallot hung beside a poster of Che Guevara. It will be a great day, read the sign above Wendy’s bakery display case, when schools get all the money they need and the Air Force has to hold a bake sale to buy a bomber. A tattered sofa occupied one wall of the room, the coffee table in front of it piled with backgammon sets and old copies of Ramparts magazine. A Bob Marley tape played on the stereo.

It was the moment of the year when the café was moving into autumn, away from its summer tourist mode. Behind the cash register, Wendy was packing away the pitchers that had held iced tea and cold cider. Her summer uniform of paisley sun dresses had given way to long sleeves and flowing, ankle-length dresses. Short, with a rounded body and small face, Wendy’s size was belied by clothes that began at her shoulders and fell draping to the floor. Her curly, dark red hair followed the same line, rippling down her back and ending just above her waist. Jennifer, whose knowledge of poetry had outlasted work on her dissertation, would have occasion to wonder in the coming weeks if Wendy hadn’t modeled herself on the Tennyson heroine behind her on the wall.

Jennifer herself was at her usual spot, the table by the Vermont Castings wood stove that, in the winter months, would reduce heating bills while contributing to what she thought of as the café’s fake authenticity. She was dressed, as usual, in dungarees, Indian cotton, and the sandals she insisted on wearing until the snow fell, but her short summer haircut was growing out, and her thick brown hair was starting to take on its haphazard winter unruliness.

“I remember you guys,” Jennifer was saying. “You were all practicing to be Leon Trotsky, and you polished your rhetoric and your steely gaze on girls like me who were stuffing envelopes for the cause.”

Beside her, Zachery Lerner grimaced.

“We weren’t really that bad. We were just showing off for each other.”

“Well, you could have fooled me. But anyway, I think it’s amazing that Williams College actually hired you to teach the impressionable young.”

Zach’s reputation had preceded him, not only at Williams but among anyone who remembered the decade just past: Berkeley in the late sixties, a first book on working class resistance to the war, three years in Leavenworth for refusing induction. Jennifer had recognized him, both by reputation and by the studious features that reminded her of all the budding revolutionaries she had always figured she would marry. His curly hair, already a premature salt-and-pepper, circled a rounded face with deep-set brown eyes and broad features. The lumberjack clothes that covered his burly frame would clearly win no friends among the board of trustees. His face, under horn-rimmed glasses, was that of a Russian Jewish revolutionary, which, at several generations removed, he was.

The front door of the café opened with a loud kick. Annie McGantry, Flanders’ organic farmer and herbalist, wedged the door with her shoulder and pulled a trolley topped by a large, covered barrel through the doorway and into the room. She spotted Jennifer and made her way to the table. She eased the barrel off the trolley, made sure that both the trolley and the barrel were standing safely upright, and threw herself into an empty chair.

“Goddamn. Can you believe I ran out of barrels?” she greeted them. “You should see the Kirby cukes this year—it’s like they don’t want to quit. I tell them, ‘Come on, how many pickles do we need? I need to finish canning the tomatoes, so stop putting out, you little sluts, and save some energy for next year.’ I’ve already brought four barrels to the co-op. I can’t start selling them for a week—they won’t be fit for eating. But at least they’re out of my hair. Anyway, here’s your barrel. I put them on your September bill.”

Jennifer groaned. “You brought them here when I can’t sell them for a week? Do you know how much we’ve got piled up in the kitchen already? Susan Broady delivered all the—”

“I promise you you’re not as crowded as the co-op is. I’m, like, buried. You know, I peed on the seeds before I planted them,” she reflected. “I think that’s why everything’s doing so well.”

Jennifer grimaced. “Don’t tell me what you put in the brine, okay?”

Zach regarded Annie with curiosity. Annie was pretty, with strong, if currently grimy features, and she looked to Zach’s urban eyes to be precisely the kind of unwashed earth mother he would have expected to find in the Berkshires. He glanced briefly at the blue jeans stuffed into Wellington boots, the small breasts and narrow hips, the muscled forearms and dirty fingernails. He found himself impressed by the uncompromising look in the light grey eyes.

“Annie manages the co-op.” Jennifer turned to Zach. “She has a back room filled with medicinal herbs, so watch out if you get a rash in her vicinity. Three hundred years ago, she would have been burned as a witch.”

“So,” Zach indicated the pickles. “Tell me what you put in the brine. I love pickles. Or is it a secret old family recipe?”

“My family? Shit. My mother’s only old family recipe was for spoon bread.”

“Well, my grandmother bought pickles in barrels on the Lower East Side. So, what’s in the brine?”

“Salt, of course. Pickling spices. Apple cider vinegar.”

“My bubbe would have been horrified at pickles made with apple cider vinegar. She would have put them in the same category as whole wheat bagels.”

Annie eyed him, suspecting that he was only half teasing her and not entirely clear about what was wrong with whole wheat bagels. Still, she liked his solidity, and she had always been partial to curly hair. He looked utterly unmovable. Annie took it as a challenge.

“She never tried my pickles, then,” Annie drawled. Her voice took on a Southern mountain twang that did not seem quite in keeping with the ANIMALS ARE PEOPLE TOO bumper sticker on her pick-up truck. But it had, Jennifer knew, been her mother tongue. Annie was the offspring of a hard-drinking truck farmer and a deaconess in the Bethel Baptist Church, her small soul the preferred battle ground of her parents’ adversarial marriage. In the end, her father had won. Annie had scraped the mud of Mount Haven, Arkansas, off her first pair of Birkenstocks, hitchhiked to San Francisco for the Summer of Love, and sworn she would never set foot in a church again.

“Honey, you come over one night, and I’ll teach you the art of making pickles, Annie-style. Hell, you can harvest the rest of the damned cucumbers while you’re at it. I could use the help, and you,” she regarded the intellectual paleness of his skin, “could use some time in the great outdoors.”

There was movement at the corner table. Samir Molchev rose from his chair and placed his book in a cloth satchel embossed with Indian appliqué. Jennifer watched him come toward them, his tall body graceful in jeans and a long, white, collarless shirt.

There really was such a thing, Jennifer decided, as being too good-looking for your own good. Or anyone else’s, for that matter. It was as if Samir knew that his body was perfect: broad, graceful shoulders, a soft swirl of hair just visible through his open collar. Soft black hair fell to his shoulders, framing pronounced cheekbones and black, slightly slanted Tartan eyes. All he needed, she thought, was a gold leaf halo and scarlet robes, and the resemblance to a Byzantine icon would be complete.

Beside her, Annie stiffened. “It’s late,” she announced. “I have to get back.” Annie rose, strode across the room and into the café kitchen, and returned with a ladle and an empty mason jar. She raised the lip on the barrel, extracted half a dozen pickles with her fingers, and placed them in the jar. She ladled brine over them, screwed the top onto the jar, and set the jar in front of Zach on the table. “Here you are. A sample. Let it sit for a week before you open it.”

Samir came up behind her. “Peace, all.” He raised his hands in greeting and eyed Zach with curiosity.

Annie ignored him. Zach reached out a hand.

“I’m Zach Lerner. Good to meet you.”

“Zachary Lerner?” Samir asked slowly. The black eyes blinked.

“Yes, that Zachary Lerner,” Jennifer put in. “Williams has stolen him away from Berkeley.”

“And you should hear the Eisenhower Professor of American Democracy on the subject,” Zach smiled. “‘Just what we need, another draft dodger on the faculty!’”

Samir regarded Zach in silence.

Annie stirred impatiently. “Jen, I gotta go. Where should I put the barrel?”

Samir pulled his eyes away from Zach. “Let me get that into the kitchen for you.”

Annie narrowed her eyes. “Don’t bother.”

“Peace, sister. I’m just trying to help you.”

“I’m not your sister, and I don’t need your help.”

“Just leave it, Annie,” Jennifer said hurriedly. “I’ll get someone to help me with it later.”

Annie turned back to Jennifer as if the exchange with Samir had never happened. “Thanks,” she drawled. “I’ve got chickens wanting their dinner.” She nodded to Zach. “Remember, don’t eat those pickles for a week.”

The three of them watched her has she grabbed onto the trolley and wheeled it purposefully out the door. None of them had any reason to suspect that forty-eight hours later one of them would be dead.

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Excerpt from Part of the Solution by Elana Michelson. Copyright 2025 by Elana Michelson. Reproduced with permission from Elana Michelson. All rights reserved.

 

Author Bio:

Elana Michelson is a New York City native who has encamped with her wife Penny to the Hudson Valley, where she writes, reads, gardens, and volunteers with local social justice organizations. After thirty-five years as a professor, she has put down a beloved career of academic writing (and student papers) in favor of writing murder mysteries. She earned a PhD in English from Columbia University, but gained her knowledge of the life and times of Part of the Solution from, well, having been there.

Catch Up With Elana Michelson:

ElanaMichelsonAuthor.com
Amazon Author Profile
Goodreads
BookBub - @michelsonelana
Instagram - @elanamichelsonauthor
Facebook - Elana Michelson Author

 

Tour Participants:

Visit these other great hosts on this tour for more great reviews, interviews, guest posts, and opportunities to WIN in the giveaway!

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ENTER FOR A CHANCE TO WIN

This giveaway is hosted by Partners in Crime Tours for Elana Michelson and Torchflame Books.

See the widget for entry terms and conditions. 

Void where prohibited.

PART OF THE SOLUTION: A MYSTERY by Elana Michelson [Gift Card]

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Get More Great Reads at Partners In Crime Tours

 

Spotlight of That's Where You Go & Other Short Stories by Peter J. Dellolio

PHOTO SOURCE:

TYPORAMA
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THAT'S WHERE YOU GO & OTHER SHORT STORIES

PETER J. DELLOLIO

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ALL INFORMATION IN THIS POST IS COURTESY OF THE AUTHOR AND BOOK REVIEWS CAFE'S WEBSITE.

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"Peter J. Dellolio has crafted something rare here: a collection that challenges, comforts, and lingers. If you’re someone who loves fiction that gets under your skin and whispers truths you didn’t expect to hear, don’t miss this one. It’s not just a book—it’s an experience."

**QUOTE TAKEN FROM BOOK REVIEWS CAFE'S WEBSITE**

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September 21

Cyberwit.net

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PRAISE FOR THAT'S WHERE YOU GO & OTHER SHORT STORIES:

From the moment I opened “That’s Where You Go & Other Short Stories” by Peter J. Dellolio, I knew I was in for something more than just a casual read. This wasn’t a book I could skim through over a cup of coffee—it demanded my full attention, and honestly, it earned every second of it.

Each story felt like slipping into someone else’s skin. I found myself holding my breath at times, feeling like an invisible observer in rooms thick with tension, longing, or secrets. Dellolio doesn’t just write characters—he *embodies* them. Every emotion, every motive, every glance feels loaded with meaning. His language is so precise and vivid that I often had to pause, reread a sentence, and just sit with it for a moment. That’s rare for me.

What really struck me was how the stories explore the more obsessive, shadowy corners of human nature. Power, control, possession—not just over others, but over memory, identity, even self-worth—are threads that keep surfacing. I couldn’t shake the feeling that these characters were often trapped in invisible contracts with themselves or their pasts. And yet, somehow, their struggles never felt melodramatic. Instead, they were quietly devastating. Real.

But what makes this collection shine isn’t just its depth—it’s the balance. For all the weighty themes, there are moments of sharp wit and unexpected warmth. Dellolio knows exactly when to pull back and let the story breathe, giving me space to laugh or sigh before diving back into the emotional depths.

There’s also this rhythmic quality to his storytelling—like each tale has its own heartbeat. Some stories quicken the pulse, others lull you into slow, meditative reflection. And while each one stands solidly on its own, together they form a beautifully interwoven tapestry of family, longing, inheritance, and the restless need to find meaning in life’s messiness.

By the time I reached the last page, I wasn’t ready to leave. “That’s Where You Go & Other Short Stories” stayed with me—not just the plots or characters, but the *feeling* of it. It made me reflect on the quiet negotiations we make every day—what we own, what owns us, and where we truly belong.

**PRAISE TAKEN FROM BOOK REVIEWS CAFE'S WEBSITE**

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ABOUT THAT'S WHERE YOU GO & OTHER SHORT STORIES:

My fiction generally reflects some of the influence of modern writers I greatly admire, namely Joyce, Kafka, Beckett, Robbe-Grillet, Hawkes.

Hopefully, I have stamped this influence with some of my own thematic and formal concerns.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Peter J. Dellolio was born in NYC 1956. He graduated from New York University in 1978.

He has had a variety of work published in over 110 literary magazines, journals, and anthologies, in print and online. Since 2018, three of his poetry collections, a novel, and a novella have also been published.

Poetry: A Box Of Crazy Toys (Xenos Books); Bloodstream Is An Illusion Of Rubies Counting Fireplaces & Roller Coasters Made Of Dream Space (cyberwit.net). Novel & Novella: The Confession (cyberwit.net); The Vigil (Type Eighteen Books). 

These books are featured on Peter’s Amazon Author site.

A collection of his one-act plays was published in 1983 by Dramatika Press.

Peter has taught language skills through art projects for LEAP

in the NYC public school system.

He is an artist himself: his work is featured on the Saatchi website. 

He lives in Brooklyn.

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SOCIAL MEDIA:

Website

Instagram

Facebook

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Spotlight of Journey Back to You by Leigh Shalloway

PHOTO SOURCE:

TYPORAMA
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JOURNEY BACK TO YOU

LEIGH SHALLOWAY

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ALL INFORMATION IN THIS POST IS COURTESY LAUREN GRACE HATHAWAY OF GRACE TAYLOR PR AND THE AUTHOR'S WEBSITE.

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A powerful story of resilience, reconciliation & rediscovering.

Perfect for fans of deeply emotional women’s fiction, this powerful first installment in The Hilltown Series invites you to rediscover the strength it takes to come home—to your town, your family, and yourself.

**TAKEN FROM AUTHOR'S WEBSITE**

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August 26, 2025

Koehler Books

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PRAISE FOR JOURNEY BACK TO YOU:

“Leigh Shalloway delivers a heartfelt and beautifully written story in Journey Back to You, a novel that reminds us how love always finds its way, evenVwhen the path is unexpected or uncertain. At its core, this book explores the inevitability of love—the way it can choose us rather than the other way around—and the emotional journey that comes with embracing that truth.”  -Lisa D.

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ABOUT JOURNEY BACK TO YOU:

Kathleen Hill is eager for college. At home in Hilltown, her family's namesake, she is pressured by her father to one day run the family business, the town's steel mill, and her mother's depression, alcohol dependency, and pill-popping are getting worse. When her acceptance to Northwestern comes, she is ecstatic, but she soon finds romance in an unlikely place.

Jase Thompson works at the mill, and while Kathleen's father only wants her to learn the ropes to continue their family legacy, Jase is able to show her the real blood, sweat, and tears of the mill: the workers. When it's time for Kathleen to go to college, their different backgrounds causes friction, and they part ways. Soon, she joins a sorority and meets Richard, a guy who woos her with fancy restaurants, galleries, and Chicago events.

When Kathleen eventually returns to Hilltown, what she sees flips her world upside down. Addiction and drugs have taken over the town, and Jase's brother might be in trouble. The mill is gone. Soon, her family home will be too. But the biggest question of all is where is Jase? Journey Back to You is a story of love, heartbreak, survival, and reconciliation.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

LEIGH SHALLOWAY has a psychology degree from Emory University and a master's degree in counseling and school psychology from Seattle University.

Following graduation, she interned at the Martin Luther King Center for nonviolent social change and worked as a lead psychologist for Sammamish schools.

She is also a holistic care practitioner who trained other practitioners and taught hospice volunteers various methodologies for helping their patients.

Leigh lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband and four grown children. Journey Back to You is the first novel in the Hilltown Trilogy.

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SOCIAL MEDIA:

Website

Instagram

Facebook

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Spotlight of The Hope Not Plot by David R. Stokes

PHOTO SOURCE:

TYPORAMA
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THE HOPE NOT PLOT

DAVID R. STOKES

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ALL INFORMATION IN THIS POST IS COURTESY OF DEBORAH GIUSTINI OF STRESS FREE BOOKMARKETING.

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A new historical /political thriller by Wall Street Journal bestselling author David R. Stokes.

Set in January 1965, The Hope Not Plot imagines a shadowy conspiracy behind one of history’s most puzzling absences: President Lyndon B. Johnson skipping Winston Churchill’s funeral.

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September 23, 2025

Broad Run Books

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PRAISE FOR THE HOPE NOT PLOT:

"Engaging espionage tale that's full of high-stakes suspense as the Cold War heats up...The lively mix of real-life historical figures and Stokes' fictional creations keeps events moving briskly along." — KIRKUS

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ABOUT THE HOPE NOT PLOT:

As 90-year-old Winston Churchill barely clings to life in January 1965, Great Britain and the world prepares for the funeral of the century.

The long-planned grand farewell has a code name:  Operation Hope Not.

A "who's who" list of world leaders plan to attend.  But Lyndon B. Johnson is a no-show.

Why does the President of the United States, a consummate and ego-driven politician, who has just been inaugurated for his own term, following a landslide election victory the previous November choose to stay home instead of making his presence known as the leader of the free world while 350 million people watch via new satellite technology. 

And, why doesn't President Johnson send his new Vice President, Hubert Humphrey, in his stead?

Why also will the American Secretaries of State and Defense travel to London as part of the "official" US delegation, only to skip the actual service at historic St. Paul's Church? 

With these verified historical facts as a backdrop, best-selling author DAVID R. STOKES takes us through the "looking glass" and into a world of shadows, mystery, and intrigue.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

DAVID R. STOKES is a Wall Street Journal bestselling author, ghostwriter, broadcaster, columnist, and retired minister.

He has been married to Karen Holland Stokes for more than 49 years.

They have three daughters, seven grandchildren, and one great-grandson.

And they all live in the beautiful Commonwealth of Virginia.

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SOCIAL MEDIA:

Website

Facebook

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Hemlock Lane by Marshall Fine

Nora finally escaped her mother when she went to college, but now she was summoned home by her father.

She wondered what he wanted.  She had a wonderful relationship with her father, but a terrible one with her mother.

Nora was closer to her nanny Clara than she was to her own mother.

Her mother was very controlling, and her father was actually afraid of her because of her reactions and negativity to everything.

We follow this beautiful story with heartfelt characters as well as some difficult ones.

There are a lot of secrets being kept by each character.  The secrets compound one on the other with Nora's father having to take the brunt of them all.

HEMLOCK LANE is a very enjoyable read that is so well written, you will be eager to see how it all turns out for each character and not want to put the book down.  5/5  5/5

Thank you to the publisher for a copy of this book.  All opinions are my own.

Spotlight of Fallen Stars by Imani Erriu

PHOTO SOURCE:

TYPORAMA
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FALLEN STARS

IMANI ERRIU

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ALL INFORMATION IN THIS POST IS COURTESY OF DANIELLE LESAGE | MANAGER, PUBLICITY & MARKETING | PENGUIN RANDOM HOUSE CANADA

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The stunning sequel to the instant international bestseller Heavenly Bodies.

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November 25, 2025

Trade Paperback

Random House Canada

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Fiction

 Fantasy

 Romance

 Fairy Tales

Folk Tales

Legends & Mythology

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ABOUT FALLEN STARS:

Never make a bargain with a god.

Elara is out for revenge. Her love, Prince Enzo, is trapped between the realms of life and death, and her enemy has vanished, leaving Elara with a life she never wanted and new powers she cannot control.

Now a disgraced queen on the run, Elara must find a way to wake Enzo while also seeking the lost Titans, a league of gods who ruled the world long before the Stars.

But there is a darker power at play, one that even Ariete, King of the Stars, is afraid of. With enemies at every turn, Elara must tread carefully if she has any hope of saving her soulmate and fulfilling her promise to make every Star fall.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Imani Erriu is the author of the romance fantasy series Heavenly Bodies.

She is a graduate from the Manchester Metropolitan University where she received a Bachelor's Degree in English Literature and Creative Writing.

She spent most of her childhood in the forests of the English countryside, which definitely gifted her an overactive imagination. 

When she isn't crying over her own fictional characters or daydreaming up her next plot twist, she can be found eating pasta and watching "The Office" on repeat.

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FIND IMANI:

Goodreads

Instagram

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